


Ink Stains

by EmmaArthur



Series: Whumptober 2019 [27]
Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: And other disabilities, Brain Damage, Canon Disabled Character, Epilepsy, Fluff, Hopeful Ending, Injury Recovery, M/M, Nerve Damage, PTSD, Whumptober, recovering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 02:34:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21246071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmmaArthur/pseuds/EmmaArthur
Summary: It's time to come out into the world again.





	Ink Stains

**Author's Note:**

> Whumptober day 30: ** Recovery**.
> 
> Fifth in the Stains series.

“Sir, I need you to sign here and here.”

Alex awkwardly picks up the pen with his left hand. He's trained himself to type one-handed, but not yet to write by hand again. Scowling, he scrawls a messy and child-like imitation of what his signature used to look like. He curses under his breath when his clumsy hand drops the pen, staining his fingers with ink. Picking it up again, he hands it over to Michael.

Michael slips his left hand around Alex's back and sign with his right. “There you go,” he says, handing the stack of papers back to the real estate agent.

“Then I think we're done,” the woman says. “Here's your copy.”

“Thank you.”

Michael stands up first, and then turns to hand Alex his crutch. Alex pushes himself up and nods gratefully. He tucks his right arm into his coat's pocket before he takes the crutch. The agent leads them to the door.

“It was a pleasure doing business with you,” she says. “I'll see you tomorrow for the final closing.”

She shakes Michael's hand, giving Alex a nod as his one good hand is occupied. Alex nods back with a smile. “See you tomorrow,” he says.

Michael waits until they're both in the car to beam. “We have a house! Can you believe it?”

“No, I can't,” Alex answers, his excitement more understated but there nonetheless.

Putting the down payment on this house is the culmination of months of fighting and struggling. It's a big moment for both of them.

“We have a house together,” Michael says. “Who would have thought?”

“You have no idea how many times I imagined it,” Alex says. “How I wished for it.”

“I think I do,” Michael smiles. “My dreams for us were less...tame, but I do.”

Alex laughs.

“I like hearing you laugh,” Michael says. “We need to celebrate this.”

“Let's go to the Crashdown,” Alex offers on a whim. It's been so long since he's been able to do anything on a whim.

“Really?”

“Yes. I feel good enough to spend a couple more hours out, so let's take advantage of it. It will be nice.”

Michael punches the air before starting the car. “Let's go, baby!”

It is nice. It's awkward and a little bittersweet too, but it's nice. Alex hasn't set foot in the Crashdown since before everything, since that day out with Mimi, actually. It's been over a year. Arturo is overjoyed and sad at the same time, and Alex learns that Liz has been keeping him updated, since they told him enough about aliens for him to understand how Rosa is alive. He comes over to sit with them and Liz, after he brings them their order of milkshakes.

“I'm sorry,” he says, looking straight at Alex. “When you were growing up, I wanted so many times to report that father of yours to the police, but I thought they'd never believe an immigrant like me over a respected Airman.”

“You could have been deported just for showing up at the sheriff station,” Alex says, deeply touched. “Of course you couldn't do anything. You did so much for Liz and Rosa already.”

“When you enlisted, I hoped you would at least be free of him, or at least that you'd learn to fight back. I never suspected he was that much of a monster.”

Alex wants to say that neither did he, but it's not true. He knew, since that day in the toolshed, what Jesse Manes was capable of. His eyes fall on Michael's left hand, healed superficially but still just as maimed inside. It's been eight months since his father died, and just under a year since Max died.

A very, very long year. Alex feels like he's spent a ridiculous portion of it sleeping or unconscious, between the initial coma, the seizures and the drugged haze he was under for the first few months, and yet it's been the longest year of his life.

“He's gone now,” he says.

“And you're still here,” Arturo smiles.

“That I am,” Alex smiles back.

“And we've just bought a house!” Michael says. Alex can feel him buzzing with excitement where their knees touch under the table.

“It's done?” Liz asks. “Congrats! You need to tell everyone!”

“We're getting the keys tomorrow,” Alex says. “I'm sure we'll organize a housewarming party. And Isobel is going to be all over the decorating.”

They looked for a house for almost three months before finding one that fit all their needs. It had to be fully accessible for Alex's wheelchair, be in town so he can go out on his own a little−that's the main reason why they're moving in the first place, since Alex can't drive anymore−but still isolated enough from the neighbors that Michael can use his telekinesis inside without the risk of someone seeing. Kyle and Sheriff Valenti both gave Alex their blessings to sell the cabin, and that plus his savings allowed him and Michael to make the down payment. Michael has finally been able to go back to work in the last couple of months, since Alex's seizures are nearly under control with the new meds, and they can live more comfortably on his salary and Alex's disability pension, though Alex will probably never be able to work a regular job again. He's started doing some freelance IT consulting to occupy himself, but working long hours in an office is impossible.

The place they've found is close to several shops and to Isobel's own house, a good thing for Alex since she's works from home, so she's the one he's most likely to hang out with or call for help. They've become very good friends over the past year. Michael, Alex and her have found each other over overcoming trauma and grief, and it strengthened the sibling bond between Michael and Isobel tenfold, as well as bringing Alex and Isobel close together.

Alex needs a solid minute to get his brain to remember how to use the straw, even though he uses them at home a lot when his hand is shaking too much to hold a glass. He feels Michael watching him, ready to intervene, but Alex finally takes a swing of his milkshake. “Um, I almost didn't remember how good these are,” he says, closing his eyes. Liz has brought him milkshakes a couple of times at the cabin, but it's not the same, to be having one here at the Crashdown. He finally feels like he's living again.

He and Michael have been going out a little together in the last few weeks, to visit houses and run some errands, but this is the first time Alex is really out of the cabin for something fun since what they've come to refer to as _the accident_. It was no accident, of course, but it's much easier to say than _the time his father kidnapped and tortured him for a week._ It makes their conversations somewhat less suspicious to outside viewers, at least.

“You need to get some churro pancakes too, then,” Arturo decides, standing up.

“I probably won't be up to staying too long, but I'd love to have one and take the rest to go,” Alex smiles in thanks.

Admitting his own limitations, to himself and everyone else, has been a hard lesson. He thought he'd done that when he'd lost his leg, but the truth was that he'd reverted straight back to his old ways as soon as he'd been comfortable on the prosthetic. He doesn't have that option  anymore . He can already feel his body protesting at being up and about for too long.

But he's comfortable with it now, at least with his friends. Saying that he can't do something, or that he needs to rest, doesn't come with a pang of guilt and sadness as often as it did at the beginning. And his friends have learned not to respond to it with pity, but with compassionate pragmatism. “Do you need anything?” Michael asks while Arturo is gone.

“I'm good,” Alex nods at him. 

“It's so nice to see you here,” Liz says, putting her hand on Alex's. 

Alex smiles. “ You should come by more often,” he tells her. Liz has been the one of his friends who has been around the least. Grieving for Max, for her, has turned into working far too much and sleeping too little. She's slowly healing, too, but she rarely goes out with her friends, and visits Alex even less. She's still a little awkward around him as a result, watching his moves out of the corner of her eyes.

“I can help you move, if you need someone,” Liz offers.

“That would be nice,” Alex says.

“I'll handle most of it with TK at the cabin,” Michael adds, “but I won't be able to at the house, so we'll need people to carry boxes.”

“I'm pretty good at moving boxes,” Liz says. “It will be a nice change from mice cages.”

“We'll be moving on Thursday, if all goes well,” Michael says. 

“I'll be there.”

Arturo comes back with their pancakes then. He has a plate piled with four and a go-bag with another six that he puts down on the table beside Alex. “Here you go,” he says. 

“Are you trying to feed us?” Alex smirks. This is far more than one order of pancakes.

“Just doing my part,” Arturo smiles back. “I remember how much you love them.”

“I love everything you make,” Alex says.

“Yeah, I remember you like to dip fries in your milkshake,” Liz says with a disgusted grimace.

“Hey, it's good!” Alex protests to cover the fact that he's discovering it himself. Another memory he's lost, then. 

“I never knew that,” Michael says, punching Alex's shoulder lightly.

“Really?” Alex asks. “Um, I guess we haven't gone out much together. We'll have to do it more often.”

When it doesn't take a forty minute drive to get into town, it will be easier. As it is, the journey alone is a lot for Alex.  But his physical therapy load has lightened considerably, and with the seizures under control, he feels like he finally can have a life beyond the medical issues again.

Alex reaches for a pancake with his ink-stained hand  and smiles blissfully as he takes a bite. 

“Are you asking me on a date?” Michael raises his eyebrows.

“Absolutely,” Alex says. Liz and Arturo both give them amused looks. “As soon as the move is done,” he adds, hoping that it won't leave him too exhausted to get out of bed.

Michael beams at him. “Finally,” he says with a wink. 

Alex feels something hit his right elbow, just above the point where his arm goes numb, and looks down. Michael is squeezing his stiff, claw-like hand under the table, with his own damaged left hand. Alex looks up at him, and his smile is just a little teary.

Finally. They've been living together for months  by force , but now they're going to move in together for real, in a house they both own.  They've been physically intimate because they had to be, but they've reached a point where they can explore that part of their relationship by choice again. They've loved each other for years, and now they can  truly be together.

It's time to come out into the world again.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm amazed at how light and fluffy this one turned out to be, given how angsty the first parts were. I'd like to keep writing short piece in this universe, maybe. What do you think?
> 
> Only one more Whumptober story, and it's going to be a longer and heavier one. Prepare the tissues.


End file.
